Archive for michigan

Fall of 1993 through early 1995 were hazy years. I was being abused daily by my then boyfriend. I met him my freshman year of college and we were eventually engaged to be married. At the time I didn’t realize that he was pulling the obvious signs of an abusive boyfriend. It should have woken me up the first time he punched me. It was fall on campus and we were walking back to our dorm from the local pizza joint after playing a few games of pinball. It was a beautiful central Michigan fall. The leaves were yellow and red and gold and I just remember being very happy as we walked back towards our dorm. Al of a sudden, He just hauled off and punched me square in the chest. I dropped to my knees, my breath knocked out of me, in disbelief at what he had just done. That was the first time I should have done something but i didn’t. I guess I wasn’t strong enough. I also should of woken up about him and our horrific relationship when my dorm mother found us arguing. I was smacking him with our dorm phone just to keep him off of me. The third wake up call that I missed came in the form of my roommate moving out of our dorm room. That should have been huge flashing warning signs but I was completely naive and blind. I felt that I deserved everything that he was giving me. He was my first boyfriend . What did I know. We eventually left the college after our first year and we stupidly moved into an apartment together down in southern michigan, thankfully closer to my family and to his. We both got jobs and started living life together. I lost touch with all of my friends. I look back now and realize that was the beginning part of his manipulation of me. He was trying to get me completely alone and friendless so that I would take the beatings. When we would visit his family, I would try to show them the bruises, but all I would hear was stories of him being tied in the backyard and I realized that the abuse had come from his parents. I had a fantastic nanny job, loved every minute of it and got paid well. THe family was very loving and considered me one of their own. This somewhat state of independance would be gone in a flash very soon. I lost my nanny job because my boss heard him beating me one morning when I was calling in sick. It was a nasty situation. They did give me wonderful letters of recommendation and it was with those that I found my next job, selling vertical blinds. When a friend at my new job, taking vertical blind orders, needed a place to crash because her ‘boyfriend’ kicked her out, I didn’t think anything about inviting her to crash on our couch. I slowly realized what was going on when I would catch the two of them in the middle of the night sleeping together. It was finally the kick in the ass I needed to get out of his life and as far away as forever. Thankfully the landlord knew what had been happening to me so when I wanted to get out of the lease, the landlord didn’t argue at all and we worked out a deal about my name being taken off the lease and thankfully the landlord helping me out with the least was my last string to that man. I was finally able to get rid of him.

After I made him and the new girlfriend move me out of ‘their’ apartment is really when I began to heal and started to spread my wings again.

I turned 21 Feb. of 1995 and quite a few of my friends were underage. I hung out with a large group of people that ranged in ages.

I even hung out with a sister and brother who would sometimes fight when they would come to my place. Never trust those redheads. Those two people made a big impact on my life. I had never been friends with a brother and a sister before. Both redheads too of course. She was your typical suburban college girl and her brother was a stone. He was also disabled. He had no muscles in his legs and to this day it’s because of him that I don’t hate myself completely. I also had never seen a brother and sister hate each other so much. It eventually got to the point where I would have two separate crowds of people at my house because of this sister/brother combo. The brother’s crew was part of the stereotypical hippie crowd who had stickers all over the back of their cars, they drove around and smoked pot and talked about the Grateful Dead trying to ‘outdead’ each other. I’ll get into a story about that another time <wink>

His sister was one of the coolest chicks I’ve ever known. I was a tomboy and had lost my girly princess side when I knew her so she was like a vision of makeup and padded bras with sparkly things on them. She was also part of the stereotypical college frat/sorority circle of people who drank beer and talked about each other behind their backs. Even she had the stoner couple in her crew. Those two could have taken me to my first phish show but I stupidly said no and went for the boys and the Grateful Dead which I do not regret

I had the only apartment in my circles of friends and so for most of my months living there I was not alone. People would stop by at all time and people seemed to genuinely like me. I even started hanging out with a few girlfriends from highschool and they would come over and hang with the other two circles of friends. It was one of the first party lives of many that I have had in my lifetime. I hope you all party like rock stars for the rest of your life like I want to.

I Digress.

After having such a tough time making friends before college I was very thankful to have such a large circle of different kinds of people who were all somewhat supportive. At this age I was healthly. There were no serious signs of the A.S. and even my thyroid was under control, unlike now. I was a healthy beautiful 21 year old blond college girl living the best part of life, the part after moving out of the home you grew up in. I

You an almost think, that you are seeing double, on a cold dark on a spanish stairs

My apartment was behind a Denny’s and that was just the straw that broke the camels back when i was looking for a place to live. When we would get the munchies and had skiied all day long, we all would run down the stairs and jump into the snow. Jump in my jeep, warm it up, in negative 50 degree windchills, and drive 500 feet to the Denny’s for an all night smoke and coffee session. The liquor and beer store was across the street fromthe Denny’s which made the party apartment just east of the central part of town.

Oh to be in the land of coca-cola.

We celebrated every birthday that year at my apartment. Everyone got a cake and balloons, even my own mom. I still have the picture of her blowing out the candles in my kitchen. I had finally settled down, or so we both thought. Every occaision was occaision enough for a keg in the bathtub and a nice round of truth or dare.

Suddenly, Everything’s gonna be different, when I paint my masterpiece

By the spring of 1995 I took these brand new wings of confidence that had sprouted in the tender care of all my new friends and began to spread my roots into the ground and wave my branches out to those who were offering friendship.

Forgive, I’m not sure I could, they say time heals everything, but I’m still waiting…

I had moved into this apartment after finally leaving an abusive boyfriend after being with him for 2 years. It was actually the second apartment. I had to leave the first one because he knew where I lived and I figured I might be a little bit safer if I lived closed to the family and in an apartment that he didn’t know about. It’s hard sometimes for me to think about those times, but thats for a reason. I think theres enough room in my brain to not deal with that time of my life right now and so I wont.

Ill keep payin, I’m not ready to make nice, I’m not ready to back down, I’m still mad as hell..

And I’m still waitinThat apartment still had somewhat of a dark cloud hanging above it and I eventually left with almost 4 months left on the lease. I paid off the rest of the lease and moved out west with a roommate who was using me for all I had. Both emotionally, mentally, and fiscally.